This Tudor home in Texas is full of genius hacks, from the air conditioning unit to the refrigerator
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The day Anastasia Casey, founder of IDCO Studio, Internal collectivism Podcast, Design Camp, she and her husband got the keys to their new home in Austin and started construction. Really, at first, it was Disassembly. “My goal was to reuse everything possible,” Casey says. The finishes chosen by the previous owners weren’t necessarily bad, but they weren’t either Habut the experienced repairman didn’t want to send everything straight to the landfill.
Having worked with Casey on previous projects, her favorite crew at Austin’s Home Renovation knew the drill: They carefully laid out the LVP floorboards in the kitchen, stacked them to size, and waited for one of Casey’s local Facebook followers to swing by the house. home and receive it to use in their remodeling. Casey was able to move most of the basic white kitchen cabinets into the nearby laundry room, along with the old granite countertops, which she also repurposed in the guest bathroom and pantry.
But it wasn’t just about saving things that were already in the Tudor-style house circa 1982, it was also taking into account what they brought. The dining room bookcase was a $200 hit on Facebook Marketplace that Casey selected and painted to look like it had always been there. “A lot of what people take out of homes is better construction, better quality wood than anything you can buy new now,” she points out. reward? The seller, who was moving into a retirement facility, included her entire library of books with the purchase. “She was so happy to see them go somewhere great,” Casey says. Find out more bright ideas from your sloppy redesign, ahead.
Place your closet before the breakfast nook
The house’s floor plan was previously — to put it mildly — terrible, Casey says. The master bedroom opens directly into the kitchen, and to get to the closet, you had to pass through the bathroom And Washroom. By adding an entrance from the former garage space, they were able to reconfigure the layout to accommodate a spacious new primary suite and double the size of the kitchen (before that, half the kitchen was essentially unused).
“There was an extra breakfast room behind the bay window, with no closet there,” Casey recalls. “As soon as I walked in, I thought, ‘This kitchen should be the whole room.’” Now outfitted with cabinets from Casey’s collaboration with Unique Kitchens & Baths, the kitchen takes full advantage of the 14-by-25-foot space.
Decorate your French door refrigerator and be ready to assemble
The only cabinet Casey couldn’t get from her Unique Kitchens & Baths line was one to hide the refrigerator. However, the problem I faced was finding a French door refrigerator that was ready to install, and didn’t cost a small fortune. After searching the Internet, Casey decided to purchase two 24-inch wide refrigerators from Forte Appliances, which were ready to be installed on the panel and cost only about $1,200 each. When placed side by side with matching custom interfaces on them, they become two The refrigerators actually look like one large refrigerator, 48 inches wide. “I think this hack saved us $500,” she admits.
Purchase decorative beams at a hardware store
Thinking about how to make her 8-foot ceilings look more intentional and less claustrophobic, Casey turned to Tanya Smith Shifflett, owner of Unique Kitchens & Baths. Her suggestion? Purchase rough-cut 2-by-4 cedar from Home Depot, stain it a dark walnut color, and screw it to the ceiling. The simple boards look like antique beams, except they cost only $300.
Make your bathroom as comfortable as your living room
Since the bathroom isn’t a very bright space to begin with, Casey leaned into the darkness by choosing a cave-like shower covered in dark green stacked soldier tiles with matching grout. “I insisted on showering without limits, and the men were very nice; “They drilled that concrete for me,” she says. The marble tiles encasing the bathroom’s surrounding walls were a budget saver: Large-format rectangles require less time and effort to install than smaller tiles. To up the ante on detail, Casey purchased a burgundy marble pencil (on clearance!) from Floor & Decor.
Shop stock vanities
The key to any fast reno is to rely on items that are in stock and shipped quickly when possible. The sinks in the master bathroom and powder room are from Pottery Barn. Casey chose two individual pieces in his space for the simple fact that one’s tall vanity tends to become a junk collector. “I think it keeps us a little more organized,” she says.
In the powder room, she replaced the nickel hardware of the 26-inch-wide Sausalito cabinet with unpainted brass hardware from Emtek to coordinate with the kitchen.
Check the rugged floor box with carpet
Moving the herringbone wood floors upstairs to the remaining three bedrooms wasn’t feasible for the couple’s budget. Carpet was the next best alternative: it required less prep work, plus it acted as a soundproof barrier. In order to maintain a certain level of design consistency, Casey chose a fiber floor treatment inspired by Empire Today’s herringbone tree.
Don’t leave doors, trim, and ceilings out of the painting equation
Casey wanted the house to look more historic than it actually is, so he moved away from bright white paint. Instead, Benjamin Moore’s Fossil shade, which “feels warm and a little buttery,” became her favorite color. Another way to make a place look older? Contrasting trim. All of the baseboards, as well as one of the guest bedrooms, are covered in Nantucket Gray, also by Benjamin Moore. “And always paint the trim around your door the same color as the door,” she suggests. It will make it appear larger. Casey also swears by color infusion: If you’re painting the walls a color, you should use the same shade on the ceiling, too. “It just looks more intentional and louder,” she adds. level”.
Keep cold with even Cooler Lockers
Since the Texas heat was so strong, Casey wasn’t inclined to remove the small partition in the living room. To help hide the ugliness, she took a cabinet from her collection and tucked it in around the air conditioning unit. Drilled holes in the top allow for natural airflow when the doors are open, although Casey and her husband will open the cabinet completely when they want to operate it. The bottom drawers hold all of the couple’s bar tools — because chilled martinis are also a good way to keep them cold.
